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LP
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SODA 016LP
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Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, Fever of the World is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds listeners that when it feels easy to resign themselves to world weariness, they should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.
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LP
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ACRE 008LP
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Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist and producer William Yates aka Memotone returns with the bleak, beautiful Chime Hours, following his stunning debut album, I Sleep. At Waking (ACRE 004CD). A master of 11 instruments, Memotone comes from a family of artists and grew up on a diet of grunge, minimal classical, and electronic music. Yates is also an illustrator and film music composer (his work includes a soundtrack for a horror series produced by Eli Roth), occupations that run deep within his avant-garde productions. Creating an otherworldly state of mind with sonic soundscapes, the album's roots twist around rural horror, techno, and classical sounds mixed with field recordings of archaic seasonal ceremonies. From the spiraling darkness and crackled techno pulse of "Poison Arrow" to the ghostly melodies and brutal electronics intersecting on "All Collapsed," the album buzzes with a variety of moods and ideas from an artist not afraid to run the full gamut of emotions. Emphasizing texture over tone, Chime Hours is heavily centered around the sounds of an analog synthesizer, while also featuring live cello, piano, clarinet, violin, church organ, guitars, bass, and trumpet, in various degrees of distortion. The album also sees Memotone bring his voice further forward, creating brief flourishes of glimmering effects. On "All Collapsed" and "You Saw the Future," Memotone toys with ideas surrounding a post-apocalyptic world that's stripped bare by humans, whereas the rest of the album takes influence from the Middle Ages -- rituals, civil war, gritty hand-to-hand combat, and a fear of ghosts and the religion that surrounds them. Memotone recorded the rituals practiced at a folk celebration in a village near where he grew up, explaining, "I thought, perhaps there is a reflection of our distant future in our past. Not only the middle ages but spanning human history. We have already lived, and more importantly survived; through times as hard as the ones we are self imposing now." The album's title comes from the belief in English folklore that those born at certain hours could see ghosts. With its layers of abstract noises, analog electronica, and snatches of fragile melody, Chime Hours evokes darkened alleyways and ethereal worlds, making for a deeply immersive album that's a testament to a distinctively inventive artist.
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7"
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ACRE 042EP
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Last copies of this 2013 RSD release. Limited edition, 300 copies on transparent vinyl. Memotone returns from the woodland with two fingers aloft to the genre conservatives switching between euphoric atmospheres and grainy scull rattling dance floor ammo. "Koma" kicks off like a futurist Tom Waits gripped by archaic electronics. Primal drums thump a dark path into an electronic maelstrom, tiny pauses in sound provide just enough time to gasp before the listener is submerged into the claustrophobic murk. "Goldair" is a more airy trip into broken circuit sound, binary industrial rhythm toils beneath angelic strings and haunting pads.
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CD
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ACRE 004CD
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Memotone lives in a 400 year-old haunted cottage in the middle of dense woodland, where he has created a stark and vivid trip through a broken fog-clogged urban landscape that carries echoes of the music of such luminaries as Mark Hollis (Talk Talk), Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cage and Nico Muhly, amongst others. The young William Yates mastered over 11 instruments, while absorbing music from At The Drive In, The Notwist, DJ Shadow and J-Dilla, in the process creating his own musical language. With his consummate musicianship as a base, William shirked the beckoning of a more traditional conservatory path to bury his instrumentation deep in a bed of broken circuits and loops I Sleep. At Waking is an esoteric path through the night rendered with daylight clarity. From the skittering and snarling "Djakka," to the emotive clarinet fugue of "Docklands" to the sea-sawing Satie-esque piano on "With Time Between Us," it's all suggestive of the perfect soundtrack to the most suggestive and terrifying cinema you're yet to see. Indeed, album track "Stalker" is directly inspired by the Andrei Tarkovsky film of the same name. Ambience, reverb and field recordings play a big part in creating the cavernous or intimate atmospheres on the record, as well. With his previous works earning him plaudits from Radio 1 DJs like Huw Stephens and Gilles Peterson in addition to glowing notices from The Wire and Boomkat (single of the week), it's clear that I Sleep. At Waking is sure to be nudging its way onto 2012's year-end lists.
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12"
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ACRE 029EP
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Anticipation is high for Memotone's second EP for Black Acre. His combinations of brittle, ghostly percussion, found sounds and muscular synth riffs continue to unearth treasures. "Lost Hours" mixes organic with technoid to create a reluctantly funky cyborg. On "Four Minute Hallway," he teams up with Leafcutter John to play poltergeist drummer with the cutlery. "Small Good Things" is the perfect sunset warmer with a more humanist lean, while "Slowly They Creep" finished things with a sinister air.
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12"
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TEAMACRE 008EP
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"Hailing from the wilds of the Dorset border multi-instrumentalist William Yates has created a youtube phenomena with his freestyle approach to melding electronic and acoustic forms. Self taught to a frightening level of skill not only has he mastered instruments from the drums through to the clarinet, MPC and piano he has also developed his own arcane musical language which occupies the many leather bound black note books littering his outback lab. 'Multicolour' is a strangely pro-boogie introduction, here allowing his reluctant funk to pulsate under his brittle ice cold percussion. Pitch bent grooves and cracked harmonics combine to form an icey injection of nitro-funk. 'Bellatrix' continues to break ground combining eccentric arpeggiated noodles with spongey bass riffage to wrap around the darkness. Kick, Snare, Crackle.. we out! On remix duties we present hip hop wrongdoer, Lukid to further smash the mold. Here 'Multicolour' is dissolved in Lukid's acid broth only to be reanimated into 7min spooky epic with haunted grandfather clock percussion and a 4x4 kick deeper than Atlantis."
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